How long should your podcast episode be?

Brandon from Digital Marketing Tool Talk asks, "What is the ideal length for a podcast episode?"

TL;DR
One of the great things about podcasting is that there are so few rules regarding what makes a great podcast. There are some podcasts that have episodes longer than 3 hours (*cough* Joe Rogan *cough*) and some that are 10 minutes or less. Focus on making your podcast as long as it needs to be to say what you need to say without worrying about hitting a certain target.

As an overall trend, we've seen the average podcast episode length hover around 43 minutes (and it hasn't really changed for 5+ years). There have certainly been plenty of short-format podcasts coming out recently, but there's nothing magical about having shorter episodes.

Also, because there are no rules around how long your episodes need to be, you can have varying lengths of podcast episodes within your show. If your episodes normally come in around 15 minutes, it's totally fine to drop a 25-minute episode if you know your audience is gonna love it! Just don't get too crazy and do something wildly different than what you're audience is expecting without giving them a heads up first.

Record your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.

Review Podcasting Q&A in Podchaser to let us know what you think of the show.

Chapters

• 0:14 How long should my podcast episodes be?
• 1:11 Are podcasts getting shorter?
• 1:57 Is there an ideal episode length?
• 2:41 Should all my episodes be the same length?

Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
In today's episode, you'll learn how long your podcast episodes should be. Welcome to podcasting. Q and A. Where you learn the best tips and strategies to grow, launch and monetize your podcast. This week's question comes from Brandon.

spk_1:   0:14
Hi Bus Proud. My name is Brandon. I'm the host of digital marketing tool talk. My episodes are usually about 8 to 15 minutes long, and I had a couple of questions. One. Do you see any trends where these podcasts are going shorter in time? Or are the long ones still seeing the best results? And that's definitely the format listeners want to see. Also, you know, I mentioned my podcast is 8 to 15 minutes long. Do you think that's too wide of a variation? Or if I should tighten that down and try to be a little bit more consistent? But in keeping that time closer, thanks both brought.

spk_0:   0:54
Thanks for your question, Brandon. We actually get this question quite a lot. People are asking, you know what is the ideal length for a podcast? The popular podcasts are they long. Are they short? What's their length? Like? I mean, is there just like this perfect sweet spots we're gonna actually get into that with this episode today. So to answer your first question, podcast episodes aren't getting any shorter per se. Um, the average podcast length is about 43 minutes on, and that's just the midway point between maybe a listeners daily commute in the hour long format that's been adopted by a lot of podcasts. And it hasn't really changed over the past five years. I know what I first started podcasting. I didn't think I had a ton of content, so my episodes were like 15 minutes. As I got comfortable. They got to be 45 52 an hour. But now we have heard about 45 minutes. And that seems to be the sweet spot for a lot of listeners, where they don't feel like they have to pause their lives. So listen. But they have something that they could listen to during a commute on the way to work or while cleaning or watching their kiddos. So 43 minutes is about what we're seeing. So is there an ideal podcast length? Short answer. No, Joe Rogan has some episodes that are three hours long, but then there are other podcasts that do just fine and are very successful at 10 minutes or less. The reality is we love podcasts because of the content that they're presenting. And so if it takes you 10 minutes to get out, great glorious content. Amazing. If you have some podcast episodes that are on the longer end, maybe up to three hours, that's okay to people. Come to the podcast to get the content to get what you say weekly. And to be honest, there times we need just a quick little something to listen to. And there, times when we have a lot of space in our day to listen to something, it really just depends on what you're trying to accomplish and what you're trying to get across. Should I make all of my episodes the same length? Not necessarily. Ah, good rule of thumb is to say as much as you need to say, for however long you need to say it and then stop. You don't have to fill the space. You don't have to necessarily hit a mile marker on time. The idea is content that people are coming to get what you have to say. So say what you need to say and then cut it for me. I really had to think about what, um, my audience could really endure what they were willing to put up with. My audience is really kind of like a bunch of content junkies. So if I've got a really good episode, if I've got really good content, they'll sit for about 60 minutes. I don't really push it past there, so I've recorded an episode for this upcoming season. That was about an hour and 1/2 and I just decided to break it up so that I didn't really push my audience beyond what I knew. They preferred eso you an experiment. You can try things out, see what works for you. If you put out a longer episode and it doesn't have the same numbers, it doesn't do as well, then that might be a good indication that we have to kind of hover around the same number, same timetable that our audience has come to expect from us. I would say for Brandon, you've mentioned that your episodes range from 8 to 15 minutes, and I think that's a reasonable margin if you were listening to a podcast that was usually eight minutes and then had a 45 minute episode that might feel a little bit different, and you could maybe play around with it, see what your audience responds, Teoh, Um, but ultimately, we're looking for some consistency to know what they can expect from you. So have you ever wondered how long your podcast episode should be? Hopefully, that cleared it up for you. Thank you so much for sending us your question. Brandon. If you guys ever have a question that you like us to answer on a future episode, please just go to speak pipe dot com slash bus route or click the link in the show notes. So leave us an audio message. Podcasting Q and A is available in audio and video formats. So if you like watching video, definitely subscribe to Blood Sprouts. YouTube channel. If you prefer listening to audio, you confined podcasting Q and A on any of your favorite podcast APS, and please leave us a review on pod chaser to let us know how we can make this show even better for you. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening and is always keep podcasting